Beneath a Full Moon Ch. 03

Shari came down the steps, her hips and thighs covered with bruises from my hands gripping her while in the throes of my beastly *feeding* I had not controlled myself well.

"Hello darling. My pack will be here in a bit. We are planning on moving on today."

Her eyes flew to my face, a question (as yet, unasked) forming on her lips. I forestalled her, my hand going to my own lips in the universal gesture of shushing.

"You will meet them today. If they accept you as my mate, you will travel with me. It will bit a bit unusual but fuck it. If they don't accept you, then I will hand the pack over to my second. Usually, a fight to the death passes leadership but only if the leader is challenged. There will be no challenge. I will step down for the good of the pack."

Shari said nothing but I could almost feel the direction of her thoughts. 'Damn it Shelly, you came on too needy!!' My mind did a bit of bitching at itself and then it settled down. After a moment, I motioned for her to be seated. Leaning over, I captured her mouth with my own and then moved to a chair opposite hers, so I wouldn't be distracted by her scent whilst I was talking.

"Today is a test, for both of us. The most important thing you need to remember is how pack members greet one another. We don't hug. We sniff. Each person (male or female) will embrace you, while planting his or her noses behind your left ear. Some may nip you but as long as they are in full human or full wolven form, our disease is not transferable. Do not show fear. Fear is an aphrodisiac to us."

I took a moment to gather my thoughts. I knew I should show her the proper etiquette but I knew if I touched her right now, I would not finish my instructions. She smelled too clean. My scent was missing from her skin and like any alpha animal; I wanted to mark her as mine. Shaking my head to disperse those distracting thoughts, I continued with her crash course in pack protocol.

"You should stand on my left at all times. Not behind me, but beside me, so that they will see that I consider you as an equal to any of them. After the initial greeting they will give their names. Watch their eyes. If they feel submissive to you, they will not look into your eyes. If they stare unblinkingly at you (and I am sure that 2 will...) they are issuing a challenge. You may deal with those as you see fit. But remember we are lukoi (wolves). You cannot win in a fair fight.

After all greetings or challenges have been acknowledged, we will proceed to pack business i.e. getting a vote to include you in our travels. This should be fairly easy, but I won't guarantee it. They may lay a challenge at your feet. The choice is up to you to accept or not accept, as the case may be."

I ran out of steam at that point. I knew how some of them would respond to a human in our midst, especially one with her capabilities. They would smell that inner pain slut, just like I had. It was probable that this would turn into something harrowing for her, but I needed her beside me. Finally, I glanced at Shari and waited for her to speak.

"I will follow your lead but I want you to know that anyone who challenges me physically will be answered in the same way. I am not anyone's meat."

I nodded to show my understanding and then moved to the couch, my arms pulling her into a hug, tight enough to crack bones. Shari and I had just finished dinner. All we could do was wait.

When the first of the pack came to my door, I motioned her into the living room and went to answer, my hackles raised. No matter the spin I tried to put on it, it was going to be far more difficult to get her entrance passed then I had let on. It was my second and his girl. They stepped inside and looked at me intently before sniffing the air.

"Who's here, Shelly?"

"The one who is the reason for my delay and also the reason why I called this meeting before we left."

Berto's girl, Lottie by name, gave a little sniff and smirked up at me. "Well, damn, Shelly, I didn't know fresh meat was in season this year."

Berto tried to shut her up but it was too late. I backhanded her across the face, dropping her to her knees. I reared back to deliver a kick to her ribs and he stopped me.

"Enough, Shelly."

"Control your bitch, Roberto."

There was an awkward moment as Lottie flipped over onto her back, offering her neck in a classic pose of wolven submission. I bent down to help her to her feet.

"Don't piss me off, Lottie. You can't take me. Perhaps your man can, but it's for damn sure...YOU can't." She said nothing, only whimpered in a heartbroken way and moved behind Berto.

I waved them away, into the living room and waited at the door. The rest of the pack showed up shortly after. No one else made any comment as they shuffled inside. They could smell the blood from Lottie's split lip and knew better than to push just now. After everyone was seated, I tugged Shari to her feet.

"I want her for my mate."

There were a few giggles here and there, before it became clear that I was not joking. Roberto stood up, his eyes glaring into mine.

"We don't allow humans into the pack, Shelly. You know it is written in our books that we protect them but we do not mate with them. They are the herd." His voice was hard but I paid no attention, shutting him up with a languid wave of my hand.

"I realize that I am asking something extremely unusual. I am prepared to step down as leader of the pack if Roberto will take the reigns. However, Berto, those rules were for male wolves and human females (or vice versa). I cannot mate with her in that way. We are both women. Look, I am prepared to offer the pack a chance to test her. She will tend to any individual challenges as well. Greet her and then we will discuss further."

My wolves lined up, each in full human form. Roberto was first, followed by Lottie. There were no problems until Georgette took her turn. Instead of the embrace and sniff, she bit Shari, hard. Shari's face went beet red but she remembered what I had told her and let it go. I saw her watching. Georgette and Roberto glared at her, making no attempt to hide their dislike of this situation and by proxy, their dislike of her. The two I had thought would challenge had made their intentions clear. She noted their looks and returned them with equal force.

I also noticed the four who had kept their heads down and called them to my side, motioning them behind me. "Lottie, Ramon, Paul, Miranda you are mine." Those words placed them under my protection. Anyone who wanted to fight with them after the fact would have to go through me to do so.

"OK Georgette. Do you want to challenge her?" Georgette said nothing but began a low rhythmic growl that I knew to mean she was working up to actually making an attack. I stepped forward and beckoned her over to me.

"You can't attack her without formal announcement, Georgie. You definitely better think twice before you do it in my fucking home." I turned to look at Roberto. "What about you, my man?"

"I smell her liking for painful pleasures, Shelly. Is that why you chose her? Were you going to hide her from us all summer until we made it impossible to do so?" I said nothing. I didn't owe any of them a damn thing, least of all an explanation. I knew Roberto would come up with something to appease the situation.

"Shelly I challenge Shari to a hunt, to be conducted tonight, with no help from you. Any who find her will make her their meat. If she can survive one evening in our company, when we are blood lusting and hungry for battle, then I will withdrawal my formal challenge."

I glanced at Shari. It was her choice, her decision. I knew before she ever opened her mouth just what she would say.

"I accept."

SHIT!

After Shari accepted Berto's challenge, he and the rest of the pack left. I knew that she would have to be on the hunting grounds by midnight, which did not give me much time at all to prepare her.

"Damn. I wish you wouldn't have accepted." I shook myself all over and then grabbed her up into a hug, before planting a moist kiss on her forehead.

"Since you did, let me give you the particulars. You will not be allowed any weapons. Your clothing must be loose and dark colored. Any who find you can set a task for you. You can fight back, but I have told you before they are lukoi as I am. They will be damned difficult for you to hurt for any length of time."

"The tasks can be anything: fucking, fighting, what have you. Knowing Berto, he will want you sexually. Georgette will want your blood on her hands, if at all possible. Avoid her completely if you can. The rest will not go easy on you. They accept you as potential pack material, but you must still prove yourself."

Shari looked at me, her eyes giving away no clues to her inner thoughts. Finally, she spoke. "Georgette was supposed to be your mate, wasn't she?"

I nodded. "I cut her loose right before I met you. She has no claim to my affection. It is merely the thought of being replaced by a mortal that pisses her off. It also makes her dangerous to you."

I continued with my lesson. "If you survive, intact, until tomorrow morning at sun-up, the pack will accept you as my mate. Even though I have said you cannot bring a weapon, you may pick up anything you find in the woods to defend yourself. A thumb in the eyes will give you time to get away, just as a large stick across the back of the head."

"Do not move carelessly. We are wolves. We can track you by scent alone and the night is our time. Do not attempt to hide in a tree all night, either. That will make this challenge forfeit and they can claim something else the next time, which will almost certainly result in your death."

I took a moment to gather my thoughts and then I pulled her into a final hug. My teeth went unerringly to the side of her throat and I bit down, hard. She was mine, damn it, and the thought of anyone else touching her pissed me off, royally.

"Come on, little love. Let's get you outfitted and get you to the hunting grounds."

The next half hour was spent doing exactly that. Shari dressed in black jeans, a black t-shirt and black hiking boots. I had given her a small sachet, filled with some herbs to help mask her scent, which she wore around her neck on a black thong. Her hair had been pulled up, into a high ponytail and then twisted into a bun. She was as ready as I could officially make her.

We arrived on my pack's grounds a little bit before midnight. Everyone was all ready there. Some were in human shape; others had chosen the form of the wolf. Shari got out of my car slowly and waited for me to join her.

"OK, she is here. Tonight is the Hunt. The only rule is you do not kill her. If she cannot survive one night, I cannot comfortably accept her as my mate, anyway. I am returning home, now. I will see you all at sun-up."

I turned and pulled Shari into my arms for one last hug. Then, I walked away. It was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.

The words struck a chord in Shari something animalistic and dark within her soul. She nodded briskly at Roberto and moved off, in to the dark forbidding shadows of the woods. She stopped twice. In the distance, she could hear the baying of wolves as they called to one another.

Her own thoughts were muddied. How the hell had she gotten herself into this predicament? True, Shelly called to her...made her feel alive but to fight her way into this pack? What the hell had she been thinking? She gave a slightly sardonic grin and shook her head to negate her thoughts but they came unbidden, anyway. She knew what she had been thinking. Here was this woman. Strong, sure and in control who needed HER. What kind of person could defend himself or herself against that?

Glancing around, she noted the quietness of the woods immediately to her left. She stepped beside the trunk of a huge oak and waited breathlessly. A furry head attached to an equally furry black and gray body, padded silently into view. The alert eyes searched the small space before giving a small shake and turning away. Shari knew it was a fake out but she stepped forward anyway, the rock rose above her head. The wolf snapped around to look at her and was met by the crash of the rock against its poor skull. The wolf dropped like a proverbial stone. Shari checked for breath and then moved on. A few minutes later she walked right into Roberto's waiting arms.

"Fancy meeting you here." His voice was soft and seductive but his grip on her arms belied the impression of gentleness as he forced her up into a small clearing.

"On your knees, little human."

Shari dropped quickly to her knees before him and watched as he quickly unzipped and pulled his engorged member out. It was a large throbbing thing. His scent was vanilla and musk, earthy and delightful. The part of her that wanted to fight collapsed in upon itself as she saw what he had in store for her.

He jerked her face up and slapped her face repeatedly with the length of his cock, until she took the hint and opened her mouth. His hands ripped her hair loose and he used her hair for a base as he eased his cock head into the warmth of her opened mouth.

"Suck it."

His voice sent shivers through her. The growling cadence, almost basso profundo in sound, turned her legs to mush. Shari clamped her lips and sucked him inside, gagging on the length as he began to forcefully fuck her face, ramming repeatedly, his hands gripping her hair hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. His release didn't take long but by the time he came, Shari had the beginnings of a class *A* headache. He released her with a laugh, pushing her back with a kick of his booted foot.

"Run away, little human. I hope for your sake that you don't see me again."

His mocking laughter followed her back into the tangle of woods and vines. As if her scent wasn't strong enough before, now she had a dampened crotch to go with it. Things could only get worse.

Shari was lost. She had walked for what seemed to be hours and she had not seen anyone. Of course, her legs were tired. Her body ached. She felt like the pack was playing with her, waiting for her to fall or sit.

"Fuck it," she murmured, "If they are waitin', I should oblige them."

Finding a safe little area, Shari sat down, her back against the trunk of a tree. She kept a grip on both of her weapons and allowed her eyes to close momentarily. A sound, located off to her right, jerked her eyes wide. Her heart rate sped up. It seemed she had company. Standing slowly, she turned and watched as Georgette came through the trees.

"Hey, bitch."

Shari strode forward to meet her nemesis. Georgette was a pretty female: _mocha colored, long black hair, green slanted eyes. They were about evenly matched in height and weight but Shari knew that the girl wasn't human. This was going to be a fight.

"You found me, whoop de do. I am so happy. What do you want?"

Georgette never answered instead, she leaped at Shari, coming so fast that it was damn near impossible to check her progress. The first hit *BLAM* landed like a ton of bricks and knocked Shari into a tree. Shari lost the rock, but kept the stick. Her face felt as if something had cracked. She got up and shook her head, pain radiating out from her cheekbone. Georgette was circling her, landing furious blows to Shari's kidneys. The pain was intense but Shari fought it off, her body shaking with the need to sit, to lie down.

"Are you angry, little wolf girl? Are you mad that this poor little human can give your pack leader something you can't? She likes my taste, you know. She likes my sounds and the way I give myself to her. She likes to hurt me and hold me. Are you mad, bitch? You should be."

Shari's words were low and almost achingly hollow. She watched as Georgette's eyes bled from green to yellow. She saw the change happening, like she had watched Shelly's partial change before. Georgette's change didn't come nearly as fast and when she raised her snout to the sky, Shari struck. Using the length of wood, she landed a solid blow to Georgette's throat. Georgette's head snapped down and the change stopped as she struggled for air. Shari raked her eyes; hard enough to cause bleeding and then finished the job with a hard blow to the back of the girl's head. It was enough. Georgette dropped, her body shrinking back into the form of a woman, her head bleeding slightly from the blow.

Shari wasted no time getting out of there. She backtracked to the tree and grabbed her rock before leaving that spot, and the girl, behind. She ran into 2 more wolves and dispatched them with solid blows to the skull from her handy rock. By then, morning birds were singing and she knew she could head back. She reached the clearing at daybreak and dropped to the ground. Georgette had hurt her, badly, but it didn't matter because she had won. She heard Shelly's voice, coming from far away.